Letter 2 America for January 16, 2018

It's remarkable to me that U.S. senators think they can lie with impunity, not just to each other, but to the entire country...on television. It's remarkable, but no surprise. When it comes to Republicans, lying is almost a cottage industry. The most recent example of the Republican estrangement from the truth was Senators Cotton of Arkansas and Purdue of Georgia taking the affirmative step on Sunday morning television of denying President Trump's use of the adjective "shit-hole" when describing Nigeria and other African countries. Just three days earlier, they had both simply said they didn't recall the remark ...what used to be called a "non-denial denial"...which might pass muster in our politics as giving loyal cover to a prominent party icon, in this case Donald Trump, whose choices in the past have put his party in a bad light. But just three days later both senators went further and converted their non-denial denials to outright denials. Put concisely, they both apparently value party loyalty over integrity, but that isn't the full extent of their sins. Their denials by necessary implication constituted accusing Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of lying when he essentially confirmed Senator Durbin's report of the President's vulgarity and ostensible bigotry. Graham has often propounded canards that served his party, accusing Democrats of partisan obstruction and the like when the reality was that his own party was to blame, but his conclusory condemnations of the opposition have been mere political rhetoric, and everyone could see that. As to outright lies, it would be a tough case to make that the good Senator is telling one now; telling outright lies isn't his history.

Cotton is a Tea Party favorite and something of a Cruz type senator. He likes to spout reactionary ideals as justification for what in most Americans' minds are callous and even despicable causes like eliminating food stamps, now known as the SNAP program that is included in the "Farm Bill" each year. He seems to revel in being an arch conservative, perhaps even just this side of alt-right, and while he was smart enough to get through Harvard Law School, one has to wonder how smart he really is. As to Republican Senator David Purdue of Georgia, he is a greedy former-business executive and a master hypocrite: a partisan who campaigned on the notion that the national debt was the greatest threat to the security of the United States, but then voted for the recent tax bill that is going to raise the national debt by $1.5 trillion. Purdue oversaw the relocation of thousands of jobs overseas during his business career while collecting millions of dollars in compensation himself, saying he was proud of finding cheaper labor for the companies he ran or helped to run. Both Cotton and Purdue are typical conservative republicans who live on casuistry and outright lies, Cotton being the more dangerous of the two. Purdue seems to be just another conservative shill for the new plutocracy, but Cotton is a true believer. He is an ardent socio-economic Darwinist it seems, and he doesn't care who suffers on account of the policies he advocates. In addition, he seems to be one of those end-justifies-the-means Republicans who think that if it advances the Republican cause, reprehensible as it may be, it's a good idea.

They have an ally in this shit-hole thing in the White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is swearing to the lies that Cotton and Purdue are telling. It is notable that while other Republicans have joined the chorus of the hard of hearing who didn't hear Trump's remark, no one is coming forward to say that Trump didn't say it. It's just Cotton and Purdue against the world, including the leaders of those shit-holes. But regardless of the positions of others on the matter, this is why it is safe to say that Cotton and Purdue are liars

Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont held a hearing this morning in which he asked the director of the Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielson, about Trump's choice of words, and she said that she "didn't hear that word." However, she did say that some "tough language" was used by Trump and others, which sounds a lot like a euphemism, though not a lie, and that's the difference. My guess is that Cotton and Purdue will eventually get hung out to dry because their denial that the president said the word purports to be proof of a negative. In light of the fact that they started out by saying only that they didn't hear the word, and in reality, that is all they can say, the fact that they didn't hear it doesn't mean that it wasn't said. That's what I was getting at when I suggested that Cotton might not be the smartest bulb in the Senate chandelier. One of the things you learn in law school is that you can't prove a negative...that a thing didn't happen. All you can do is adduce the fact that no one has proof that it did. Maybe that lack of fundamental insight is why Cotton didn't work as a lawyer for very long. It seems that he just isn't up to it, but what's Purdue's excuse.